Call From The Waves
by MisterYada
Summary: Not even the freest spirit can resist the lure... M mostly to be safe. Mostly Lucky Star Forum's Fanfic Challenge Round 2.


Author's Notes: And now is the second round of The Fanfiction Challenge, brought to you by the members of the Mostly Lucky Star Forum. If you have just started, welcome to the challenge. If you read the first challenge, welcome back. The situation this time? "_Kuroi, Miyuki, Konata, and the Hiiragi twins go to the beach and find a box or chest._" Another good one brought by the last round's winner, Solarius Scorch. What treasure could be in store for the girls this time around? (Yeah, yeah. Pun joke. Just go with it.)

**Call From The Waves**

"_Ominous and obscure_

_Carnivorous and monstrous_

_Hideous and slithering_

_Dead to eyes, but ever dreaming_

_Behind the stars at high_

_Below the stirring sea_

_Arise and claim your throne of lunacy"_

_-Throne of Lunacy, The Black Dahlia Murder_

Blazing sunlight beat down on the five women in full force as they ran across the sugar-fine white sand, coming close to blistering their feet each time they stepped down on it.

A break. Freedom from the monotony that the school system brought to all of them, giving them a chance to frolic in the surf. Suits and school uniforms traded in for bikinis and, in one case, an elementary school swimsuit.

-o0o-

"I honestly can't believe you wore that _again_. Why do you feel like you must cater to the closet-cases?" Kagami was scolding Konata once more. The receiver of the tongue-lashing grinned slyly before giving her retort.

"What's wrong Kagamin? Don't enjoy the idea that I like getting wet in this?" Kagami stopped dead in her tracks, a disturbed look etched on her face.

"Wh...huh... How can you say something like that so openly? That's just plain wrong!" Konata began to sprint away at top speed when she saw the red rising up in Kagami's face. That was usually a sure sign to get out of range.

"Watch! I'll get wet right now," she shouted back to the others while running straight into the open ocean.

The other three that had come on the trip felt like they were spectators at the moment, watching the other two make a show of themselves for the rest of the beach to enjoy. The one seemingly enjoying it the most though was the teacher, Nanako Kuroi. "Why are they friends again? They're so different it's hilarious."

"Well, there is some speculation among people that they actually have romantic interests in one another," was the calm response of Miyuki. Kuroi and Tsukasa took a moment to stare at the pink-haired genius, then to Konata, who was splashing in the waves like a child of the appropriate age for her swimsuit, then to Kagami, who was yelling at Konata from halfway across the beach for acting like said child, then finally to each other.

"No. That's not it," was their unified conclusion. Miyuki just shrugged in defeat before eye-smiling, following the others to an appropriate spot on the beach, distanced from the crowd.

Once the parasol had been set and the beach blanket placed beneath it, Kuroi and Miyuki sat down in the shade. Both began to rub suntan oil on every inch of exposed skin, which there was quite a bit between the two in bikinis. When done and glistening, they laid back, one holding a cold beer while the other held a book.

Down in the water, Tsukasa had joined Konata in the release of their inner children. Kagami watched the two splash around and dive playfully from the shoreline. She sat in the sand and drew designs with her fingers as the cool ocean lapped over her toes.

Tomorrow was her and Tsukasa's birthday, and this was to be their present from the teacher. A fun day at the beach, a relaxing night in a hotel, then back home, where the rest of their family waited with a party for them. It was good to have a chance at free time with her best friends. After this school year, who knew where they would end up?

Looking down at what her fingers had been absentmindedly tracing, she didn't know if to laugh or be surprised. What she had drawn seemed to resemble a man with an octopus head sitting on a giant throne, with a circle above him. Before she could take a better look at it, a rogue wave washed up further than the rest, erasing the image.

"Hey everyone! Look what I found!" Konata's voice carried over to both Kagami and the two sunbathers. Instead of swimming near Tsukasa like she had been only a few moments ago, she was further down the shoreline and out in deeper water. She was swimming back in their direction, towing something behind her.

Everyone gathered around as she dragged a dark wooden chest onto the beach. The outside of the box was worn, decayed, and covered in algae. A sure sign that it had been floating in the ocean for quite some time. The brass handle Konata had been pulling it by snapped off the moment the chest touched land.

"What is it?" The first obvious question was asked by the inquisitive Tsukasa.

"It seems to be a chest of some sort. By its design, I would say... West African make, from around the 1400's." Everyone stared at Miyuki after voicing her analysis.

"I thought I was supposed to be the history expert here. Why do I bother to teach her?" Kuroi said to herself.

"Yuki-chan, did it hurt when they implanted that data chip into your brain," Konata asked, overshadowing their teacher's lament. Miyuki blinked confusedly, unsure of weather to answer the short girl.

"Okay, it's obvious what it is... to Miyuki anyway. What I'm curious about now is how a chest from West Africa in the 1400's made it to the beaches of Japan in 2010." It was Kagami's turn to speak, and she had brought up a good point for the whole group to think on. After a couple of seconds, Miyuki answered again.

"Well, hypothetically, it could have made it here by drifting along the ocean's powerful seafloor currents. It could also be that it was brought or smuggled here by a buccaneer ship that sank in the area..."

"Wait wait wait. Buccaneers? Like, pirates?" Konata interrupted. Miyuki nodded, which was all the blue-haired girl needed. "Pirate treasure! I call first dibs!"

Without waiting for another word, she reached out and undid the metal latch that held the lid down and threw the top open. She gasped loudly before reaching in to retrieve what she saw. "Oh my _Haruhi_! It's the legendary _One Piece_!"

She turned about and presented the lone object the box held to the other four. Cupped in her palms was a silvery orb, roughly the size of a small cantaloupe and polished to a near blinding finish. As everyone else tried to avert their eyes from its brightness, Konata actually brought her face closer. "Hey, I think it has something on it."

"Bring it under the umbrella so we can see without damaging our eyes," Kagami ordered. The otaku complied and skipped ahead of the others towards their spot. In the shade offered by the umbrella, the orb was no longer as bright, but still gave off a faint glow. Something about that didn't sit right with Kagami, but no one else seemed to notice.

Now that they could look at the surface directly, both Miyuki and Kuroi brought their faces closer to the sphere while Konata held it. Indeed she was right; along what would be the equator of the orb was a design similar to waves, but instead of one solid line raising up and down, it was made of a series of miniscule symbols. Miyuki stood up straight after taking her time to look over the object. Everyone waited patiently for her report, but all they got was a, "Huh..."

"'Huh...'? What do you mean 'huh...'? What is it?" Konata seemed anxious to learn about her newly acquired bauble, but Miyuki just shook her head.

"It just seems to be a silver orb. I can't identify what language the script is in, though it's not to say that it couldn't have just been some local writing from the area it was made in. I think the best course of action would be to bring it to a museum and have them research it. I'm sure they would give you a nice sum of money to compensate for it."

"And I think finders keepers, losers weepers. It's a rare item, so I'm gonna keep it," Konata said happily as she stored the sphere in her beach bag. With nothing more to say, she went back down to the water, Tsukasa close on her tail.

"You're so lucky Kona-chan! I wish I could have something like that!"

"Who knows Tsukasa? Maybe my luck will rub off on you." Konata laughed.

-o0o-

For nostalgia's sake, Kuroi rented a room in the same hotel that they had stayed at two years ago on the trip with Yui. In consequence, they showered in the same shower room, together again. The only difference now was that Konata did not sit with the other three teens while they washed their hair. Instead, she sat in the bath next to Kuroi, the orb in hand.

"You couldn't have left that thing in the room," Kuroi asked. Konata smiled while holding the orb just under the surface. Its glow had not faded since that afternoon. Kagami looked over and saw that, which only deepened her mistrust for it. At first she attributed the glow to phosphorus collected over the centuries, but even that would have gone dim by this point.

Kagami crossed the room and joined the blonde and blunette in the warm water. Konata drifted lazily from one side of the bath to the other, abandoning Kuroi for Kagami, while still holding the object. Just as she settled next to her, Kagami spoke. "Kuroi-sensei is right Konata. There's no need to bring that with you in here."

"It likes the water though," Konata said nonchalantly, like it was a fact known to everyone but Kagami. Hearing that, Kagami had no other reaction than to shake her head. Konata had become as attached to the thing as a brand new manga, so the chance of separating them was extremely low for the moment.

Feeling she was clean enough, Kagami got out of the bath and grabbed her towel. She went into the adjoining changing room and got dressed, leaving everyone else to finish cleaning themselves. Ascending the stairs to their room, Kagami came to a conclusion that seemed utterly stupid to her, but nothing else made sense.

She simply hated that silver ball. Everything about it seemed to bring forth a seething pot of rage that she never knew she had within her. She didn't care how much it might upset her friend, but she had to ask her to get rid of it.

Since she was the first one to return to the room, Kagami laid down on the bed her and Tsukasa were to share and picked up her book from the nightstand. Her mind couldn't follow the story at all. All thought went back to the orb, and the bad feelings it gave her. She jumped when the room door creaked open.

Into the room walked Miyuki, Tsukasa, and Kuroi. Kagami was barely looking over the top edge of her book, but could easily notice the absence of the blue ahoge among them. "Where's Konata?"

"She's still in the bath playing with that ball," Kuroi said, her affected Kansai accent mixing with slight agitation. It seemed to Kagami that she wasn't the only one that was thinking negatively about it. Feeling like doing anything else would be a waste of energy at this point, Kagami placed her book back on the table and threw the covers over herself.

"I'm gonna go to bed. I feel a bit...drained." She turned to her side and closed her eyes, trying to put herself to sleep by pure will alone.

-o0o-

Sleep came for the lilac-haired girl, but it was far from uneventful. Images flared up and faded away from her mind, like the back of her eyelids were acting as the screen for a broken projector that played a movie directed by a madman. No amount of tossing and turning in the real world could pull her from the subconscious seat of her dream theater.

First was the image of Konata, holding the orb out with the sun against her back, so that all Kagami could see was a black shadow that held the vague shape of her best friend bearing a ball of pure light. A split second before her mind shifted focus, the shadow-friend's eyes flashed red.

Not even a transition of black was seen as the picture of the octopus-headed man in the sand came up. Slowly the sand all around the drawing melted away, so that all that remained was the bright mound of sand against a midnight blue background. The lines made by her fingers thinned, but became more defined. The white began to shift colors, until what used to be sand had become _real_.

Sitting upon a basalt throne, inlaid in onyx, was _him_. She knew the name, for some unknown reason, but her mind forbid her to even think of it. Primal instincts older than man itself welled up from deep within her. She knew that any mention of the name would alert him to her presence.

It was still a dream, yes, but no longer Kagami's. It was the realm of the great Old One before her. The giant humanoid, cloaked in robes of blackest night and crimson of blood, surveyed everything within the sight of eyes as deep as the reaches of space, set within the head shaped like what could only mockingly be called an octopus. What tentacled beast truly made up his head Kagami did not know, and felt that her sanity would not be able to handle the truth. His skin was pallid and clammy looking, as if he were dead, yet still breathing. Protruding from his back was a pair of sickeningly magnificent wings. The leathery folds set between the bony frame of each wing were tattered with the aeons of his existence, showing the only proof of his timeless life.

To all sides, statues and obelisks surrounded him, all in shapes that could only exist in the minds of the most disturbed and insane. Floating far above his head was a pinpoint of light; the wretched orb.

Kagami's vision widened as more of the landscape decided to reveal itself. Along a nearby ridge, volcanic vents poured forth copious amounts of sulfuric and toxic clouds, blackening the area. A, deep, wide trench opened between her and him. From it rose a moaning sound that brought chills to her spine. The moaning of countless tortured souls.

Peering into the depths of the crag, her soul turned to ice at the sight of the most inhuman scene she could think of. Hundreds, thousands, millions of bruised, beaten, and broken bodies hunched over, as if in reverence to him. Every age, gender, and race was represented in the twisted mass. Each person stripped of all that made them human, leaving not even the clothes on their back.

As she scanned the sea of flesh, unable to look away, one body stood up straight. The warning that the long blue hair gave Kagami couldn't prepare her for the shock she felt when the face of her best friend looked up, directly at her. What had been Konata was destroyed in the eyes of Kagami.

The long, luxurious hair that had been a proud point for the girl was tattered, frayed and, at some points, falling out. Her once healthy body was now emaciated and ragged, each breath drawn seeming to torture her. But what disturbed Kagami the most was her eyes.

The emerald glow of her iris' didn't exist. As if some sick optical surgery had been preformed on her, all that could be seen of her eyes were expanses of white. Her stare was soulless and sorrowful, and trained on the one person who didn't belong there.

From the edge of her vision, Kagami could see a black blur. It held no shape, or at least one that her human mind could comprehend, but it floated over the people, heading for the lone standing girl. Kagami attempted to reach out, to yell, to warn her friend of what came for her, but she could do none of it. Before being obscured in blackness, Konata's mouth moved, sending out the one word that pierced the whole nightmarish landscape.

"Kagami."

-o0o-

Kagami sat straight up with a gasp. Despite the room being a comfortable temperature, a thin layer of chilling sweat covered her body. The room was dark, save for one light. Kagami turned her head and came face to face with Konata.

"Konata!" she yelped. The small girl held a finger to her lips. In the light of the orb, Kagami could tell something was wrong. No smile nor glint of childishness existed on her face. To be exact, it was the opposite; as solemn and as somber as Kagami had ever seen her. Silently, Konata pointed to the front door of the room, then began to walk away. Kagami threw the covers from herself and followed her oddly quiet friend.

They walked down the stairs to the beach, cloaked by the moonless and clouded skies. Neither said a word until they were halfway to the shore. The whole way, Kagami prepared a million things to say to her friend about bringing her out there at such an ungodly hour, and about the orb. That was, she was going to tell her all of it, until Konata turned around. Down her cheeks a glistening trail of tears reflected the hazy and unnatural light.

"Konata... you're crying! What's wrong?" Kagami dropped to her knees before her friend, placing one hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Her whole body was shivering from how much she had been holding back. There was a sharp intake of breath before Konata spoke, her voice shaky and barely audible.

"I'm sorry, Kagami. I wanted to warn you, but it wouldn't let me. That chest... It didn't just float here. I'm not that bright and even I know that that wood was too heavy for it to float. It was sent to us. When I saw the orb, I wanted to give it to you and Tsukasa as a present, but the moment I touched it... It's a bad thing, Kagami. I..." She paused for a moment to sniffle, then continued. "I have to take it away."

Kagami gave a small laugh and began to reach for the sphere, hoping this was some elaborate prank planned by her friend. "Oh, come on Konata. It can't be that..."

"No!" Konata screeched in a voice that Kagami had never heard out of her before. She pulled the orb away quickly and, with her other hand, smacked the back of Kagami's hand, hard. Kagami instantly retracted her arm after feeling the sharp sting of her friend's open palm.

Konata began to sob right after. The only thing Kagami felt like she could do was hug her, and so she did. Wrapped in the arms of her friend, Konata buried her face into her shoulder. Kagami ran one hand through Konata's long blue mane. "Sh... It's fine Konata. I won't get mad at you for that. I think this thing is just messing with your head. Let's throw it away and go back to the room."

"I can't do that..." Konata choked out between sobs.

"Nonsense. Just toss it into the water. You've got a good arm. I'm sure you could throw it further than most people would swim."

"Kagami. I really can't do that. It has a hold on me. _He's_ gaining control of me." Kagami's heart stumbled at the mention of him. "My only choice is to make sure no one else can be harmed by this. Tell Tsukasa I said happy birthday, and same goes for you. And as for everyone else... I love you a-"

Konata seized up mid-word. Before Kagami had the chance to ask what was wrong, she spoke again, but it was not her voice that came forth. A deep, infernal voice that echoed in Kagami's mind as well as her ears let loose from Konata's lips. Her brain throbbed in excruciating pain from the contact with the otherworldly voice.

"_When they would call to us... When they would beckon us... We would deliver them... We would make them whole again..._" Konata looked up, making Kagami freeze in terror. Just like in the nightmare, Konata's iris' were gone, replaced by nothingness. The white stare pierced Kagami before being turned to the sea.

With measured and deliberate steps, Konata walked towards the open ocean. With her arms at her sides, and orb tight in her grip, she slowly descended into the water. Kagami crawled along the sand, trying to say something to stop the forward march that would surely kill Konata, but her voice failed her.

Helplessly, Kagami watched as the water rose past Konata's chest, then up to her eyes, and finally, over her head. What had held Kagami's voice back disappeared, but the only sound she could manage was a wail of utter anguish. She fell over in the sand, hugging her knees to her chest. Until the sun broke over the black horizon of the sea, she wept, her tears held back by nothing.

-o0o-

And so it was that every year, July 7th marked two events in the lives of everyone close to the girls. The birthday of Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi, and the disappearance of Konata Izumi. On the advent of the twins' passing into adulthood, they lost one of their greatest childhood friends.

When asked about what had happened that night, Kagami would only tell the others that had been with her on the trip. Through the sparse clues obtained that way, an investigation was conducted. The beach was combed, and remote operated vehicles were used to search the seafloor of the area. No body was ever found, but Kagami already knew that they wouldn't find one. She had seen the nightmare a few times more since, and each time was reassured that her friend was still alive.

Alive, but a slave to him.

**End**

Author's Notes: I would like to acknowledge two points of inspiration for this story. The band _The Black Dahlia Murder_, mostly their song _Throne of Lunacy,_ and my personal master of horror, the late H.P. Lovecraft. Everything he was as a writer, I wish to embody.

So there is my entry for this challenge. Now go and read all the other ones. Hopefully there's some fluff among it to help even you out after this, if it unbalanced you any.

I hope you enjoyed.


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